This invention is related to remote access of devices and more particularly describes a method and an apparatus for accessing the convenience, features and services of known office devices from a remote location.
Typically, a person performs most efficiently and most comfortably when working in a familiar environment. For example, office equipment or a particular office device, such as a digital telephone, an office desktop (i.e., a Personal Computer), or a facsimile machine, may provide a plethora of features. Knowledge of the particular commands required to access those features and operate that equipment or device may be obtained, in some cases, only after attending an initial training session and using the equipment or device for several days, or even several weeks. Once that knowledge has been obtained, a person is comfortable and efficient with that equipment or device.
However, on occasion, a person may have to use different office equipment or devices, hereinafter collectively referred to as devices. This may occur because the person has moved to another job, or is on the road at a hotel or a remote office, or the employer has obtained newer equipment, or the employer has obtained temporary replacement equipment, or the employer uses different equipment in other areas of the office or even side-by-side in the same office. When confronted with the different device, the efficiency of that person will drop because that person must take the time to learn how to use that different device. Further, that person will not initially be comfortable with using that different device. If the features of that different device are very different than the devices that the person is familiar with, that person may experience frustration, which further reduces efficiency and job performance. In extreme cases, such as where the instructions for operating the equipment are in a language that the person does not understand, then the person may not be able to perform a job function at all.
Using an unfamiliar, unsecured device or set can also adversely affect safety and security where the remote person needs to transmit or receive information regarding the safe use of a machine or a chemical, and can adversely affect the financial success of a person or an employer, such as where the person needs to transmit or receive information or contact another persons regarding business or making an offer to supply or purchase services or material. Additionally, costs associated with processing internal (intra-enterprise) telephone calls, e-mails, faxes, and other information sharing and exchanging, are much lower than costs associated with processing such information externally. In addition, a person in an office, especially a person in management, will have access to financial and other information via servers in accounting, personnel, production, shipping, etc. Thus, information and communication are essential to safety and prosperity.
The traveling person will typically be exposed to many different environments and devices, in hotels, in remote offices, and while using commercial or private transportation. Operating procedures and commands cannot simply provide a standard, permanent set of procedures and commands because devices are constantly being improved to provide additional features, and because a permanent set of procedures and commands would have to be designed for a complex device or set, possibly contemplating features that are not even in existence, would generally be unnecessarily complex or cumbersome for a similar, simpler device, or a device which provided fewer features.
Consider a typical office environment where the user can send and receive e-mails and faxes, or can instruct someone else to send faxes, all using familiar equipment, access servers for information, etc. The user can place and receive telephone calls using a familiar office telephone and the familiar office voicemail system. The user can conference calls, transfer calls, put calls on hold, speed dial business associates, business contacts, friends, family, etc., all from the office telephone set. If the office has a data network, and possibly Internet services, the user may also be able to store, retrieve, transfer, modify, manipulate, etc., different types of information, such as audio, video, facsimile, text, data, spreadsheets, drawings, etc., by using a familiar computer connected to a familiar set of servers or hosts within a corporate enterprise.
However, the user may not be at this office. The user may be traveling on business, or pleasure, and be at another location, for example, a hotel in a country other than the United States, or even be on an airplane. The hotel would provide a telephone in the user""s room for the user""s convenience and, to call the office, the user would use the room telephone to dial the hotel long distance access code, the country code, and the office telephone number. This call would then be routed by appropriate telephone companies and long distance carriers to the PBX, ACD, CENTREX, etc., at the destination office, which would then route the call to the specified office telephone.
At this point, the only new information that the user has needed to know are the access code for a long distance call, and the country code. However, assume now that the user wishes to add another party, that is, the user wishes to create a conference call. Is the hotel telephony system configured to support a conference call? If not, the user must depend upon the called party to set up the conference call or obtain operator assistance. Further, even if the hotel telephone system is configured to support a conference call, what are the access codes that must be entered to instruct the hotel telephone system to create a conference call? What if the user is in Japan, and the two parties that the user wishes to add to the conference call are in England and The United States? In this case, even if the user can determine the necessary access codes to create a conference call from the hotel in Japan, the user will be paying for two long distance telephone calls, which results in significantly higher costs.
Consider another case wherein the user wishes to make two separate calls. The user must dial all of the necessary long distance access codes and country code digits for each call. In addition, each call has its own associated charges for setting up the call, and possibly a minimum charge for each call. Again, the user will be paying for two long distance telephone calls.
Consider still another case wherein the user wishes to obtain certain information from the office, possibly in order to send that information to another person. The user may call the office and ask someone to obtain the information and send it to the specified person. But what if, because of the time difference, there is no one in the office? If the user has a portable computer the user might be able to call the office data network and retrieve the document from a server, but then what? The user would have the document on the portable computer, but may not have a way to print the document or to send it.
Also, even if the user can place telephone calls, the problem is only half solved. The user may wish to receive telephone calls as well. Of course, the user could give his itinerary (locations, telephone numbers, and dates), to certain persons, who would know how to contact the user, but what if a calling party called at lunch, or on a weekend. There would be no one to provide the information to the calling party. The user could give his itinerary to his business contacts, but what if an unexpected business opportunity or problem arose and the user had not provided his itinerary to that business contact. The user could, in theory, activate call forwarding and forward all calls to the user""s remote location. But some telephone systems and some offices do not allow external call forwarding, especially if the forwarded destination is long distance. Plus, if long distance forwarding is permitted, each forwarded call incurs a long distance charge which the user or his company must pay, even if the incoming call is unwanted or is a wrong number.
Therefore, the problem to be solved is how to provide a user with the ability to remotely access and use all the services and/or devices available at the user""s office and/or the corporate enterprise, or at the user""s home, regardless of where the user is currently located, and regardless of what equipment or devices are present at the remote location, just as though the user was still in his/her local office or at home.
Another aspect of the problem to be solved is how to provide a user with the ability to use the features available on the equipment and devices at the user""s office, regardless of where the user is currently located, and regardless of what equipment or devices are present at the location of the user.
The present invention provides a method and an apparatus whereby a user can remotely access the devices or sets (equipment), services and applications at the user""s office, regardless of where the user is currently located, and regardless of what devices are present at the current location of the user.
The present invention provides a method and an apparatus whereby a user can use the features available on the devices at the user""s office, regardless of where the user is currently located, and regardless of what devices the user has at the present location of the user.
The present invention further provides the user with the same procedures, the same xe2x80x9clook and feelxe2x80x9d of his office environment, the same pre-programmed features of his office telephone, the same access to the enterprise-wide corporate information, etc., all from remote locations, but just as if the user was at his desk/office.
The present invention additionally allows for remote services to be provided at contained or fixed costs, similar to the costs incurred as if such services were accessed from the office. The invention also allows the traveling user to also communicate with business contacts, friends and family, as if the user was in his office making a local call.
The present invention also provides a versatile telephone set, where the features and functions are programmable using a computing device, such as a portable communications device, personal computer, a network computer, a JAVA station, a palm-size (handheld) computer, frequently referred to as a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), etc.
The present invention allows a user at a first location, such as a remote location, to access devices at a second location, such as a base location. The first location may be any remote location, such as a remote office, a hotel, home, an airplane, the beach, a boat, a car, etc. The second location may be any base location, such as the main office, a branch office, a home, etc. The steps, which are executed by a portable communications device used by the user, include presenting a plurality of representations, where each of the representations corresponds to a predetermined one of the devices at the second location, accepting a user selection of a representation, establishing a communications link with the second location, presenting an image or images of devices, applications, servers, etc., represented by the representation which was selected, accepting user selection of a device function represented by the image, sending the user selection of the device function to the second location, receiving a result from the second location, the result representing a response of the selected device to the user selection of the device function, and updating the image to display the result to the user.
The present invention also allows the user at the first location to conduct business by using telephone facilities available at the second location. In this case the portable communications device presents a plurality of representations, where at least one of the representations corresponds to a telephone set available at the second location, accepts a user selection of the representation corresponding to the telephone set, establishes a communications link with the second location, presents an image of the telephone set, accepts user selection of a telephone set function represented by the image, sends the user selection of the telephone set function to the second location, receives a result from the second location, the result representing a response of the telephone facilities to the user selection of the device function, and updates the image to display the result to the user.
The present invention also allows the user at the first location to conduct business by using telephone facilities available at the second location. In this case the portable communications device presents a plurality of representations, where at least one of the representations corresponds to a telephone set available at the second location, accepts a user selection of the representation corresponding to the telephone set, establishes a communications link with the second location, presents an image of the telephone set, accepts user selection of a first telephone set function represented on the image, the first telephone set function being to dial a party at a telephone number specified by the user, sends the user selection of the telephone set function and/or the specified telephone number to the second location to cause the second location to place a call to the called party, connects the user and the called party as a voice connection through the second location, accepts user selection of a second telephone set function represented on the image, the second telephone set function being to terminate the voice connection, sends the user selection of the second telephone set function to the second location to cause the second location to terminate the call to the called party, terminates the voice connection through the second location, and monitors for additional user selections.
The present invention also allows the user at the first location to conduct business by using devices, servers and applications available at the second location. In this case the portable communications device presents a plurality of representations, where at least one of the representations corresponds to the device, server or application available at the second location, accepts a user selection of the representation corresponding to the device, server or application, establishes a communications link with the second location, presents an image of the device, server or application, accepts user selection of a first device, server or application function represented on the image, sends the user selection of the device, server or application function to the second location to cause the second location to access the device, server or application, sends information regarding the device, server or application to the user, accepts user selection of a function represented on the image, sends the user selection of the function to the second location to cause the second location to execute the function, and monitors for additional user selections.
The present invention also provides for duplicating an office environment by allowing a user at a first location to access multiple devices which are available to the user when the user is at a second location. In this case the portable communications device presents a plurality of representations, where each of the representations corresponds to a predetermined one of the devices available to the user at the second location and at least one of the representations corresponds to a telephone set available at the second location, accepts a user selection of a first representation, establishes a communications link with the second location, presents an image of a device represented by the representation which was selected, accepts user selection of a device function represented on the image, sends the user selection of the device function to the second location, receives a result from the second location, the result representing a response of the selected device to the user selection of the device function, updates the image to display the result to the user, accepts a user selection of the representation corresponding to the telephone set, accepts user selection of a first telephone set function represented on the image, the first telephone set function being to dial a called party at a telephone number specified by the user, sends the user selection of the telephone set function and the specified telephone number to the second location to cause the second location to place a call to the called party, receives a result from the second location, the result representing a response of the telephone facilities to the user selection of the device function, updates the image to display the result to the user, and connecting the user and the called party as a voice connection through the second location and the communications link, the communications link being used for communications both with the second location and with the called party.
The present invention also provides for duplicating an office environment by allowing a user having a portable communications device at a first location to conduct business by using telephone facilities available at a second location so that the user can receive incoming calls directed to his office telephone number. In this case the portable communications device accepts an incoming call on a communications link from the second location, accepting an identity for a calling party who has placed an incoming call to the user, the incoming call being to the telephone number for the user at the second location, presenting the identity for the calling party, accepting an instruction from the user as to the treatment of the incoming call, sending the instruction to the second location, handling the incoming call in accordance with the instruction, and monitoring for additional instructions from the user.
The present invention also provides for operation of equipment at the second location to provide the above benefits to the user. Generally, a controller, or a plurality of other devices, performs the steps necessary. For example, the controller allows a calling party to access office devices and equipment, even when the user is at a second location, by accepting an incoming call from the user, receiving a user selection of a device, receiving a user selection of a function of the device, sending the user selection of the function to the device, receiving a response from the device to the device function, and sending the response to the user.
The controller also allows the user who has a portable communications device at a first location to conduct business by using telephone facilities available at a second location, including the handling of incoming calls to the user at the user""s office telephone number. The controller performs the steps of accepting an incoming call from a calling party, the incoming call being to a telephone number for the user at the second location, determining an identity for the calling party, determining the first location, if the calling party is a predetermined person, or if the first location is a predetermined location, then placing a call to the portable communications device and sending the identity for the calling party to the portable communications device, accepting an instruction from the portable communications device as to the treatment of the incoming call, handling the incoming call in accordance with the instruction, and monitoring for additional instructions from the portable communications device.
The present invention also provides for simultaneous access to office information, local area networks, data, servers, applications, etc., while voice communications are present. The user may access the information, local area networks, data, servers, applications, etc., as if the user was in the office.
In the above inventions, the communications link may be any means of transferring data, such as telephone lines, satellite or cellular links, or the Internet.
Other objects, features, and advantages of the present inventions will become apparent upon reading the following description of the preferred embodiment, when taken in conjunction with the drawings and the claims.